


Fading

by guilt_is_for_mortals



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Lonely!Reader, M/M, Melancholy, Other, Reader-Insert, References to Depression, Sad with a Hopeful Ending, Self-Indulgent, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27417574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guilt_is_for_mortals/pseuds/guilt_is_for_mortals
Summary: “Statement of Y/N Fairchild, regarding their relationship to Anthony Lukas and... fading in response to it. Statement given directly.”In hopes to find help after a life touched by two entities you give your statement to a grumpy man at The Magnus Institute.While he doesn't seem willing to offer you any aid, his assistant Tim is not so quick to let you fade.
Relationships: Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives)/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Fading

**Author's Note:**

> Hello yes, this is me being terribly self-indulgent because I want nothing more in my life than to romance the heck out of Timothy Stoker, local hot boi(™).
> 
> Just a few notes, y/n is always there for your first name, your last name is determined by the story.  
> I did my best to ensure that readers of any gender can insert themselves into this fic.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!  
> If you do, kudos or a comment would mean the world to me!  
> Thank you <3

**_Reader POV_ **

“Statement of y/n Fairchild, regarding their relationship to Anthony Lukas and... _fading_ in response to it. Statement given directly.”

The man, who had introduced himself as Jonathan Sims, looked rather sickly and very tired. But maybe that simply was what happened to you, when you got in touch with the strangeness and fears that were ruling this world. 

It didn’t really matter to you. All you wanted was to get it off your chest, to tell your story. To maybe get help. Your slightly shaking fingers brushed a stray curl out of your face as you began to speak, trying to not get distracted by the whirring old tape recorder next to the man on the table.  
  
“Fine, I’ll start then. I… I have been a lonely child, even though I never knew I was lonely. I don’t know who my parents are, but as long as I can remember I lived with my grandpa. I am not even sure if he adopted me or if we actually are related, coming to think of it... Okay, well, that is not important. As long as I can remember I lived in a huge house and my name was y/n. If I ever lived anywhere before or was someone else, I don’t know. 

“The house was big and vast and I saw my grandpa... maybe once a week? I had private teachers and there was a huge library and an observatory in the highest room of the house, a tower, a small spiral staircase leading up and up. Once a week I was allowed up there with my grandpa and we would look at the stars and he would tell me about the universe. About how big it is, how empty and that yet we all are a part of it, made of stardust.  
  
“Don’t look at me like this, it is… important. To me, at least and to this story. This few hours every week were the only time I actually spoke to people, really. There was staff and my teachers of course and others belonging to the family would visit sometimes, but I never… I was too small to talk to them and I was so used to being alone that I wouldn’t have known what to talk to them about. All I wanted was to travel to the stars. I wasn’t lonely, you see? I was content with a situation that I didn’t know was not… like it should have been.   
  
“I grew up to read every book in the library several times. I read about families and about love and it was all so foreign to me, but it filled me with a strange longing. I was sure that one day I could have all that and I maybe just was too young. When I would leave the house one day I would find someone and we would travel the universe together. 

“I guess it was on that day, I was around 18, when I realized I had never left the house. I feared that grandpa would get angry if I asked him about leaving, but he did not. He told me someone would come and take me out, soon, he knew just the right person. It was about a month later when I met Anthony Lukas.  
  
“I often wonder if I fell in love so instantly because he was the first person my age I met or because he was a quiet person and did not overwhelm me after being alone for so long. Maybe that is how feelings work, I am still not so sure about that. He did not take me to the city, I still can’t really believe I am living in London now, so many people… you can’t even see the stars at night, really. But Tony took me to places, took me outside, I saw the sea for the first time and I remember crying because it was so beautiful. It was the first day someone ever held my hand.”   
  
“Is there a point in this somewhere?” Mr. Sims didn’t seem impressed by the story, and maybe you really had been rambling a bit. But you needed him to _understand_ .   
  
“There is, I am going towards it. Do you want a complete statement you can understand or not? Where was I… Tony. Tony made me _feel_ so much, for the first time in my life and I started to smile and laugh and it went so well for about half a year and he… he asked me to marry him. It was my first kiss, that day, and it felt magical. Overwhelming.   
  
“After I said yes, things changed. I told you that in all these years in an almost empty house, I had never felt lonely. Tony changed that... I was not prepared… Do you know how lonely it can be to love someone who doesn’t love you back Mr. Sims? Not in the same way you love them? He spent more and more time… away. He told me it was family stuff and that it was important and that I needed to understand. But being back in my dark, old room, knowing I wouldn’t see him for days, sometimes weeks, made my heart freeze. I would lie in my bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, feeling the cold and empty of the room closing in on me. I am not sure if I felt warm ever since.   
  
“Fog started to follow me, clouding my days… There were no stars at night anymore… I couldn’t see them or even the sky, it was like he had taken them with him when he went away. It was even worse when he visited me, when he came back, told me it had to be this way and that it all would be fine. I knew it wouldn’t be. Fine, that is. He would leave again. _He always left…_   
  
“I… left with him, in my own way. It was around that time I started to notice the fading. It is all a bit of a blurr, I don’t know how long it all took, but I think it was almost two years. It felt like an eternity and passed unbelievably fast at the same time. I had never seen much sun, never been going out much, but looking into the mirror one day I noticed I almost looked _transparent_. It started slowly. Some days I was a person, some days I couldn’t even pick up a book, my hand… I would just reach through it. There were days I would wander through the halls as a ghost…

“I hadn’t seen Tony for so long. I was barely a shadow of myself. Grandpa had tried to help… but whenever I stepped into the observatory, the sky would cloud up and fog would cover the stars. So he didn’t want me up there with him anymore. I had never felt so lonely in my entire life… and I vanished. I vanished and I started falling… through the ground, through the house and the ceiling, falling. Falling in grey fog, somewhere I couldn’t see, not flying, no ground and no sky, for so long just... falling. Alone.  
  
“Ah… I am sorry… just a moment… okay. When I woke up again I was… transparent, but _there_ . And I was not… at home. I can until this day not remember where the house I spent my entire life is located, I tried to find it, but I can’t go back. The fading, it only stops when…” You reached out a pale hand and Jon only now noticed when you touched his arm, how the colour reappeared in your skin, the nail polish you wore turned violet instead of the grey it showed before. Like water paint soaking a sheet of paper, colour seeped back into your cold fingers. You looked Jonathan Sims straight in the eyes, your lips slightly trembling, close to tears. 

“I need your help, Mr. Sims. I am fading. It gets so much harder to come back. There are entire days I just… vanish.” Letting go of his arm you looked at your hand, amazed to actually see it there.

“I want to see the sky again, Mr. Sims, I want to be _there_ again, but I don’t know how.”

At this moment the door to the office swung open and a tall man entered, carrying a huge box filled with files.

“Hey boss, sorry to interrupt….”

“Tim. Thank you _so_ much for knocking.” At least it seemed like Jonathan Sims was as cold and prickly to his coworkers as he had been to you and he didn’t simply not like you, but everyone in general. It raised your hopes that he would help you, even though he did not seem to believe a word coming out of your mouth.   
  
“Please place the box over there. We were done here anyways, right, y/n?” 

“W-What?” You stared at him in disbelief. “I-I thought you would help me!”

“We will investigate your statement and see if we can find an Anthony Lukas or the house you described. We are not paranormal medics. Thank you for giving your statement. We will let you know if we find something.”

For a moment you wanted to scream at him, to tell him no, that you would **not** leave, not until he would help you, until he would stop you from fading, until he would stop the fog. But maybe he just really couldn't. It had been a far reach, anyways. Any doctor you had been to talked of depression, of it all just being in your mind. And now even this man, part of an Institute built to investigate the paranormal, did not believe you. 

“Tim, as you are here already, would you accompany them up to the door please?”   
You looked over to the assistant, your eyes met. Yours filled with tears, Tim’s filled with sympathy. 

“Come on, I’ll show you out. It is a bit confusing here at times, we wouldn't want you to get lost, right?” He opened the door for you and led you up back to the entrance hall. 

“I know the boss can be a bit… prickly at times, but he will look into it and do what he can. If there is anything, we will find out.” All you could do was nod, the smile you tried for getting stuck on your lips, only a little twitch of the mouth. 

“Thank you. But I guess... I won't get my hopes up too far. Goodbye.”

  
  


**_Tim POV_ **

  
  


“Tim, do you have a moment?” Jon stuck his head out the office door and his assistant turned around in the dark corridor, walking back towards him. It had been a few exhausting weeks. Since the Prentiss incident, working at the Institute didn’t feel the same as before. Jon was not the same, but neither was Tim himself. 

“Sure, what’s up, boss?” He tried to sound normal, just as always, though not really succeeding, the usual grin getting stuck on his lips.

“I need you to visit this address, the one on the yellow post-it, and ask… y/n Fairchild a few follow up questions. Sasha found clues that they might actually be connected to Simon Fairchild and maybe the Lukas Family, and I need some answers. However you get them, I suppose.”   
He handed Tim the grey folder, who opened it and read the first few lines.

“Oh, the fading person?” He remembered them, a soft and grey figure, but the look in their eyes had stuck in his head. Strangely intense. Now Jon wanted him to visit them. But not to help them, no, just to have them relive things again. Tim could feel anger boiling up inside of him. All Jon wanted was to _know_ , all the time, everything, while never giving any answers. He kept disappearing, becoming more and more paranoid... 

“Yes. At least that is what they think. I am still not completely convinced they are not simply depressed, but as there are interesting connections… let’s see if you can find something. I have to go.”

\---

The door to the tiny flat on the 7th floor swung open, but Tim couldn’t see anyone inside the sparsely furnished little hallway.

“Hello? Y/n?”

“H-Hello?” 

It was more an echo than an actual voice, and at first Tim wondered if he had only imagined it, or if it came from somewhere else in the halls.

“You are… with the Institute, right?” This time he was sure the voice had come from just right in front of him, only a whisper, but there. Then there was a slight mirage in the air, a bit like the heat over a fire, making the world twist and turn.

“Please… lift your arm… and hold out your hand.” Tim must have been mad to trust a voice coming from nowhere, but he did as he was told, the pleading sound sending a shiver down his spine. He was an investigator after all. He would find out what was going on here. 

It took a second or two, and then he felt _something_ touch his fingers, feeling too soft, almost _not there_ at first, and then, slowly, becoming more material. It was a hand, manifesting in the air, paperwhite skin turning to flesh. Like a watercolor painting the person in front of him came to life, their skin and hair soaking up colour out of nowhere, big eyes staring into his, the same intense look he remembered. 

“It worked.” Their voice was not loud, but much more _there_ than the whispering before. Their fingers still intertwined, Tim did not dare to let the hand go yet, fearing they might just disappear again.   
  
It was hard to believe, but up until this day he had always trusted his own eyes and his senses - now he could feel and hear this person who had a minute before not been there. Sure, there had been worm ladies and all kinds of crazy stuff happening at the institute, but someone just appeared out of the blue, right in front of his eyes… that was new.

“Well, y/n… I think you understand that I have some questions. Can I come in?”

  
  


**_Reader POV_ **

  
  


The man who had introduced himself as Tim Stoker now was in your flat. The man who just had pulled you back out of the fog that had been closing in again. Who had held your hand and trusted a bodiless voice like a madman. He looked different than most people you knew, but then, you did not know many people. He had kind, dark eyes and his skin was marked with quite a few perfectly round little scars along the face and neck. Sitting on the couch, one foot tucked under himself and a file in his hands he just looked at you with curiosity.   
  
“You wanted to ask me some questions?” You made your way into the little kitchen to heat up the kettle for tea. “I hope earl grey is fine?”

“Oh, sure, yes. And… Yes, I would very much like to ask you some questions! The boss sent me here with a whole list. Okay, how about… can you describe the house you lived in from the outside? You said there was an observatory? We are trying to figure out where you lived.”

You shook your head while reentering the living room with two steaming teacups. It would be cold on your tongue, but you would have something to keep your mouth busy with.   
“I have no idea. I think it was close to the sea, we did not drive very far back then to visit the shore… but then, England has a lot of shores.” 

“Well you sure are right about that. So you really don’t know how to find back to your grandpa's house? Anything that could help us?”

“All I know is that his name is Simon Fairchild. Or was… I am not sure… I haven’t seen him in a long time. He… left me. People tend to do that.” You let yourself sink onto a chair next to the couch and put your hands around the cup as if it could warm your fingers. 

“Is this really helping you to find a way to fix me?”

“I hope so… though you seem to have found a way to cope.” Tim looked down onto his own hands holding the teacup. They also showed some of the round scars you had noticed before, leaving you wondering what had happened to him.

“It… helps. The touching, that is. It also works with someone… just being there talking, but touch seems to - well, I don’t know, anchor me in reality?” A joyless laugh escaped your lips. “It is ironic, isn’t it, how the touch of a person could be the salvation for someone who has no one left in their life? This is my last attempt, Mr. Stoker. I am not sure if I even want to stop the fading by now. Maybe I am beyond saving.”

  
  


**_Tim POV_ **

  
Tim couldn’t help but raise his hand again and close it around theirs. He had watched their colours drain while they talked, had watched their skin go white and their hair grey. They gasped and jerked their hand away, staring at him as if he had burned their skin. 

“What are you…?”

“You were… fading, again.”

“Oh.”

A strange moment of silence, in which Tim could almost feel them overthinking, and then felt the back of their hand touch against his own again. He knew he should continue to ask them questions, but he also wasn’t sure if it would lead anywhere but them sinking into the lonely thoughts even more. Their skin was so cold that he would have wondered if they were being alive if they did not sit right here next to him, breathing slowly.

“So… how do you… what do you do, in your life. I mean, you… have a job?”   
A nod. He waited for them to continue, realizing a little too late that that had been all he would get as an answer.

“Where do you work, then?” 

“A library. I help sorting the books and such. It… reminds me of home.” 

“Not exactly a place to meet people.”

“I am not a people person.”

“But that’s why you _need_ someone, right?” Tim imagined it all to be quite easy. They just had to find someone, the one who wanted to spend time with them and touch them and they would never fade again. Right?

“That is not as easy as you make it seem, Mr. Stoker.”

“Please. Call me Tim, okay? We’ve held hands twice today, I think we are past last names.”

“Sure. Call me y/n, then.”

The plan manifested in his brain so sudden and clear that Tim wondered why he hadn’t thought about it sooner. As Jon had said - he did not care just _how_ Tim got his information. At times that involved him seducing someone, a bit of flirting and a kiss or two maybe, but y/n here in front of him on the green sofa was so starved of affection that they probably would be happy with him just holding their hand. As he still did that at the moment. So he slowly took his fingers away from theirs.

“Well, y/n, I have to go on now, but… the next time I am around this area I could… stop by and check on you, maybe?” Big, shocked eyes looked up at him as he lifted himself from the couch and they hurried to also get up, almost spilling their tea. 

“I mean, just to see if you’re still there? So you don’t have a reason to just… completely disappear, hm?” 

“That… that would be… very nice of you. Tim,” they added his name, something resembling a smile playing on their lips as they said his name.

“Perfect. I will see you soon then.” 

And he left. A part of him felt bad about tricking them, but he didn’t lie, did he? He would return. He would be nice and pleasant and there and together they would find out where Simon Fairchild resided at the moment. A perfect plan, right?

**_Reader POV_ **

Tim had shown up at your flat two times in the last weeks. You had not really believed that he would return, you had been burnt too many times. So it came as a complete surprise when he stood in your door, again, holding a bag of croissants. You talked over tea, a much more relaxed conversation than the one before, and it was so much easier for you to answer. No touching that time, but it just helped to have someone there.  
  
The second time had only been three days later, and you hadn’t even begun to fade again. It made you able to concentrate better on the outside world. Maybe also on how friendly and beautiful Tim’s eyes were and how handsome he actually was, even after getting caught up in the rain, hair, face and clothes dripping wet. He had talked less than before, but let you wrap him up in a big towel and when your hands touched as you handed him a steaming cup of tea, you for a moment thought to feel the warmth of his skin on your fingertips.   
  
Such a small but forgotten feeling, that sparked something in you that you had not felt for a long time. It had brought back memories, memories from before the fog took over your life and you told Tim all about it, told him while he was distractedly running his warm fingertips up and down your wrist. The more you talked, the more memories came back and for the first time in what must have been years you felt yourself smile a real smile. You had forgotten how it felt to have hope, but now that you knew that Tim would return, and that he could keep you here, keep you _feeling…_ now you remembered. 

\---

But then, days turned into a week, then two. He didn’t return after this one fateful afternoon and the fog took over you harder than ever. After a while you weren’t sure if you even were a person anymore, going days without talking, sleeping, existing. 

  
  


**_Tim POV_ **

  
  


Tim had not expected to ever come back to their flat after they finally poured their heart out on his third visit. He got what he wanted, and Jon had been pleased. It had actually brought them a step forward. But with every new revelation and every new piece of knowledge, Jon’s paranoia grew. While Tim at first had been worried, the sorrowful feeling in his stomach more and more started to grow into boiling hot anger as time went by. 

It sat inside of him like a timebomb, just waiting to finally explode. There were weirder things than usual going on in the institute, his boss was going insane and they were hunted by monsters. Real monsters! And Sasha… no. No he would not think of Sasha, not today, not now. Maybe never. He didn’t want to. Wasn’t able to.

He had stormed right out of the Institute about an hour ago, wandering aimlessly through the streets, trying to contain his anger, to not scream at random passengers. Or punch a wall until his knuckles were bleeding. It was unfair. It was completely fucked up and he… he found himself standing in front of a nondescript wooden door with the name “Fairchild” on it. His feet had dragged him there without him even noticing where he was going.

“Y/n?” He knocked, standing outside the door for almost a minute walking up and down in front of the door. Just as he was about to leave and be on his way again, insides still boiling, the door swung open.

“Y/n, are you there?” He entered and closed the door behind himself. They wer nowhere to be seen, but hey… that did not mean much when it came to them, right? 

“I know you are here, a door doesn’t just open on its own. I hope. You… you can _touch_ me… if you need to, I guess?” How weird it felt to say something like that, standing in a seemingly empty room, telling the air that it was okay to touch him. 

“You are… warm.” It was merely a whisper, but it was so close to his ear that he wondered just how close they were standing.   
“I can feel... your warmth.” Tim could neither feel nor see them, and it just made him angry once more. They had done nothing wrong in their life, and yet the world threw this at them, made them disappear into thin air as if they had been nothing but an idle thought. Just like he had… he had forgotten how the real Sasha…

“I feel… I feel...” And then it was Tim’s turn to feel. Feathery touches, ice cold fingertips wandering along his arm, his shoulders, gently connecting the scars on his face to invisible constellations. Snowflakes on his heatened skin.

“You came back.”

“I did.” They started to manifest, to become visible, painfully slowly, but more and more with every added touch. Their fingertips felt more human. He did the only logical thing and pulled them into his arms, wrapping them around where he supposed their body to be, engulfing them in his warmth and anger and _existence_. Their freezing body seemed to soak up this heat and to wash over his anger like an ocean wave and take it away. Icey lips pressing against his forehead calmed his racing mind. 

“Tim…” they murmured, pressing closer against him to soak up as much warmth as they could. Just his name, over and over again, until they felt real against his body. For a second he let himself believe that somehow it could all turn out alright. That they both would survive. That they both would live. 

Within everything he didn’t know about this strange new world and the scheming he somehow had ended up in, he knew that he would fight. For Martin and Jon. For his brother. For Sasha. And now, also for y/n.


End file.
